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...and then having the power to fill your house to the brim with free clones of paid stuff, should you so choose.

Jailbreaking to work around OS/carrier lameness, sure. Trying to justify the pirated/infringing apps you warezed and put on your device for free, essentially ripping off developers for their 99c, supremely lame.

I never really understood this. You go and get a really expensive phone, then begrudge someone their 99 cents. Or seriously spend more than a few seconds thought on whether or not to buy that "really expensive" $1.99 app. And subsequently get suckered into dropping tens of dollars on in-app purchases in in some freemium game. People are weird...

Most of us who jailbreak aren't interested in stealing apps. Heck, by default those repositories aren't even available to a jailbreaker. Instead, it's about adding functionality. Frankly, look at some of the new iOS 7 features... We jail breakers had those in iOS 5 and 6.

Prior to iOS 7, iPhone apps running on a non-retina iPad were displayed in low res, even though there was a high res "retina" version of the app's images readily available. The fix? A jailbreak App called RetinaPad (which, incidentally, I paid for). A free app, SBSettings, added some quick access toggles to the notification pull down - another useful feature that iOS 7 borrowed.

Want to ssh into your iPhone? Gotta jailbreak it first. Want a decent wifi scanner for troubleshooting? Again, you need to jailbreak. Want to be able to use gestures to replace the home button? Again, you need to jailbreak.

There are lots of reasons for jail breaking that have absolutely nothing to do with theft. They're probably of interest only to a minority of iOS users, but they exist. As iOS matures, those reasons gradually dwindle... but I can't see them ever going away completely.

seriously. i want my phone to look the way i want it to look and act the way i want it to act, within reason. the two main things im missing on my non-jailbroken phone are a carrier name editor so i can delete that crap, and a couple little apps that let me put five icons across to fit more crap on my home screen. bad dogs

Actually, if you've ever bought a iPhone in certain Asian countries - such as MKB in Bangkok, the phones from small dealers are sold pre-jailbroken and loaded up with pirated Apps, movies and other content, as a "service" to the customer. As phones are frequently sold outright and off plan, this kind of distribution channel is a much higher fraction of the market, than it is in the US , where subsidised phones dominate. This likely represents millions of devices. Given jailbreak downloads are typically 10 million , its at least a very significant fraction, and it wouldn't be unreasonably be a majority.

I strongly suspect the motivation for, and the rate of jailbreaking varies wildly by country.

I'd also hazard a guess, the whilst there are people with pretty reasonable motivations such as the Wi-fi scanner example, they represent a tiny fraction of the jailbroken device owners - most have it done for them for commercial reasons - either explicitly to pirate Apps, or out of ignorance when its done for them because the offer of "free extras" is too good.

Actually, if you've ever bought a iPhone in certain Asian countries - such as MKB in Bangkok, the phones from small dealers are sold pre-jailbroken and loaded up with pirated Apps, movies and other content, as a "service" to the customer.

And I'm sure all those dealers carefully screened that pre-loaded content for malware, right? Depending on how cynical one is about Apple, this sort of thing is either the #1 or #2 reason they are so tight-assed about the App Store and about jailbreaking.

The problem is that you're rewarding a company (known for making extremely high profit on their devices) for locking you out of your hardware. Their attitude towards letting you install the software you want is not going to improve in the future with people doing that.

Even more basic... want ad blocking? Jailbreak. Want some privacy? JB time. Jailbreaking allows one to use their device, which they paid for (in one way or another) as they see fit.

iBlacklist is another useful feature, only available by jailbreaking. Yes, I can block callers by creating contacts, but it gets old having a bunch of "zzzzRoboCaller" entries in my contacts as opposed to just one blacklist that does the job in a few taps.

iBlacklist is another useful feature, only available by jailbreaking. Yes, I can block callers by creating contacts, but it gets old having a bunch of "zzzzRoboCaller" entries in my contacts as opposed to just one blacklist that does the job in a few taps.

Glancing quickly at the iBlacklist app, you need to create contacts to blacklist (or whitelist) them anyway.

In any event, you don't need to create separate contacts for every robocaller. I'm still on iOS6 and don't have the proper call block function that was added in iOS7, but I have a single contact for them called "spammer", every time an unknown number fails the 800notes.com / whocallsme.com lookup test it gets added to this contact in just a few taps as well. It has a silent ringtone and custom vibrati

Now that would be an app whose time has come for iOS -- something like Mr. Number that checks the robodialer databases and blocks the number, preferably with a pickup and hangup (just so the robodialer tries to get a live person on the ACD.)

I have to thank "93 Escort Wagon" for those comments, first of all. That's exactly what I keep trying to explain to people who seem to be under the impression that jailbreaking is simply a tool to allow piracy on the device.

Personally, I do a bit of litecoin mining and I find it immensely frustrating that I can't manage my wallet with an iOS device, thanks to Apple imposing a ban on App Store apps related to crypto-coin exchange.

I also like some of those apps they have for Android phones (such as the one AT

I also like some of those apps they have for Android phones (such as the one AT&T recently advertised) which automatically read your incoming SMS text messages to you when you're in the car. Again though, iOS doesn't have any because Apple decided any code that interfaces directly with the "cellular side" of the phone is off limits.

FYI Siri can do this - reading them hands free works pretty well (although as far as I know you have to prompt her - e.g. "Read my latest text"). Having Siri send messages works acceptably - I don't do that as often.

I don't drive myself to work very often anymore, but yeah - that's useful functionality.

I hope assume iPod Touch would fit in this discussion. Anyways and recently (a couple days ago), I got an unwanted old/used (resetted and formatted that took about two/2 hours), iPod Touch (v3.1.3 (7E18), model MA627LL from 2008, and 16 GB). Newbie questions:

1. Is there a way to make it as an external USB flash drive (all file systems [FAT32, NTFS, MacFS, EXT#, etc. supported) beside the usual iTunes stuff? I know I did it before with regular iPods, like a 6th generation Nano, through iTunes' for disk op

Because some of us just a solid phone, with a few nifty features, not a full-blown handheld customizable computer.
The thing is, flexibility and stability are generally diametrically opposed. By way of example, devices that run software glitch more often than those that use only locked-in firmware.
I am neither an apple nor an android fanboi, I've had (and have) both. My Galaxy S1 crashed way too often, so the customizability wasn't worth it to me. Even my Nexus 7 tab which I have now needs a reboot f

Hmmm. I'm not calling you a hypocrite (at least, not yet) but you'd be up in fucking arms if somebody violated the GPL, right? But not Apple's TOS...

Were you replying to me?

Courts in the US have held that jailbreaking is legal, regardless of a manufacturer's TOS. Sensibly, the wrongdoing comes with the activities a person chooses to do after jailbreaking - such as pirating apps.

When a TOS runs counter to the law, it's the TOS that falls down.

But to answer the actual question: I'm not an advocate for the GPL, personally. But in a case where a violation of the GPL (or any license) is prosecutable in court... yeah, if you break the actual law you have to d

note that "pirated" games these days generally offer an option to disable or bypass the socalled freemium crap (ie inapp purchases where you have to spend hundreds in order to play the game at all). i'd rather pay $10 from scratch, than being hagged into "rating", "liking on facebook", "paying item X, Z, Y for $100+ that are artificially required to enjoy the game. sometimes its way more than $100.". It's an horrible model.

Heck even games such as battlefield and what not - which costs much more to produce,

Old school JB people dislike the app pirates. Once, it was discussed about having a jailbreak actively disallow rogue installer apps. However, this was vetoed because it would create a "jailbreak the jailbreak" arms race.

"Piracy" often removes the incentive to create useful arts and sciences. Why bother working if you can't make a living at it? Don't give me bullshit about doing what one loves for a career - at the end of the day the reason every one of us works is to get paid. Period. We all have bills to pay and we all value our time.

To deny someone a measly $.99 or $1.99 for an app which cost a minimum of tens of thousands to develop is pathetic - and if everyone rips it off, you probably won't see a version 2.0 of the a

> Nobody has a right to "intellectual property", almost all of which in every case is building on the work of others.

The Constitution grants provisions for patents and copyrights protecting a monopoly for a limited time because it is recognized that people DO have the right to profit from their work. The reason the term is limited (in theory it's limited) is to promote the creation of useful arts and science for the public domain. It's a fair exchange and everyone should recognize that people who work

Complain as much as you want: I can copy bits from you, and it won't take anything away from you. I shall continue, and it's highly unlikely you'll be able to stop me. DItto for the other million+ people.

I'm sure you'll feel the same when someone gets their paws on your Bitcoin wallet. It is just a string of 0s and 1s.

BTW, why don't you spend your time creating something useful. Anything at all. And then let everyone come along and copy it for free. We're waiting. And don't give me the "What about Linux?" shit. You're a taker, not a giver. The people who have donated their time and efforts to Linux, some of whom have dedicated their lives to it, are givers and you have not earned the right to compare yourselves to them.

+1. some people create things, so they have empathy with other people who create things. others are just takers and add no value to society, so they cannot comprehend how their actions hut those that create. like arguing with a rock. good news is, they rooted their own phones and gave them to chinese hackers, in exchange for free angry birds (yes, I bet they download cracked versions of free apps too lol).

+1. some people create things, so they have empathy with other people who create things. others are just takers and add no value to society, so they cannot comprehend how their actions hut those that create. like arguing with a rock. good news is, they rooted their own phones and gave them to chinese hackers, in exchange for free angry birds (yes, I bet they download cracked versions of free apps too lol).

You do realize that most of life is a binary system and you can't generally have one without the other?

In other words, some people give, some people take. It's part of life. If you feel superior because you are one and not the other, then you are missing out on how life really works.

Does that person downloading a pirated app really hurt the developer? No it doesn't. That person most likely doesn't pay for software, so the developer would never get money from him. But oddly enough, there is enough people who have no problem paying for stuff, and that is why developers & producers make money because there is enough people buying to turn profit. It has always been this way. Thinking your superior because you pay for stuff is deluding yourself. Thinking your smarter because you don't pay for stuff is also deluding yourself. We are just all playing our parts in life.

Good software/music/movies sell and make money. Crappy software/music/movies don't sell and they blame it on people pirating the stuff then the fact they made some crappy software/music/movies.

That person most likely doesn't pay for software, so the developer would never get money from him.

I think that’s far more valid for a game that retails for $59.95 or a software package that’s $299 than 99c iPhone apps. I understand jailbreaking as a means to run unapproved apps, but wanting to get away with nickel-&-dime shit on your expensive phone is just weird.

EDIT: Obligatory bewilderment at Slashdot comments not understanding Unicode on the cusp of A.D. 2014.

In other words, some people give, some people take. It's part of life. If you feel superior because you are one and not the other, then you are missing out on how life really works.

Everyone gives and takes. Every legitimate economic transaction involves both giving something and receiving something. So anyone with a significant non-criminal income is also a giver. You have to give something to earn money. Contrary to the implications of this thread, it's actually the artist and software communities whi

This person may not have the right to make money off of their work, but if they don't want to give it away, you have no right to TAKE it.

If they choose to offer it up for donations, that's their business. If they want to charge for it, that's also their business. But the moment you want to use their product, you should be bound by their rules.

When you go to buy a phone, do you only pay the cost of materials? Apparently, that's all you think it's worth, since you're arguing that taking the 'bits' doesn't dep

I'm certainly hoping that you've not pirated any apps that have a server side component. I pay for my servers, and for the bandwidth and drive space associated with it.

Paying customers give me the ability to pay for that. Pirate users of my apps ARE a direct cost to me. If you're one of them, you ARE harming me. If you post anything on a feedback page, or click on my support link, or email me to complain - you're costing me time and money that should be spent on my actual, paying customers.

Oh stop being so melodramatic - the product comes the way it was designed. If you bought it, you should have bought it in the knowledge that what it had to offer was fine for you and not with the intent to whine about any possibility that the company - understandably - has denied you form the start.

the product comes the way it was designed. If you bought it, you should have bought it in the knowledge that what it had to offer was fine for you and not with the intent to whine about any possibility that the company - understandably - has denied you form the start.

If they sold it, they should have sold it in the knowledge that the strength of their product's tamper protection was fine for them and not with the intent to whine about any possibility that the buyer - understandably - has broken the weak system.

But this case is a random unknown stranger offers to make you keys for your house. And while they are at it, sets up a shop of stolen goods inside the front door.How do you know they did not make themselves an extra key?

But this case is a random unknown stranger offers to make you keys for your house. And while they are at it, sets up a shop of stolen goods inside the front door.How do you know they did not make themselves an extra key?

Just curious, when you put this argument out, did you really think it applied? Explain how a house is like an iPad or iPhone? Explain how your house is locked down like iOS? You can't, because it's not. Banks/realtors do not sell you a house and tell you that the basement is off limits. That you can't park cars in the garage, even though there is room to do so. That you can only use a certain type of glass when you replace the windows. That you can't remodel your house.

They don't always even sell you a house full stop. In no country where I've lived do banks or realtors sell you the house, they merely act as agents (and in fact in some of the countries the term for them is not "realtor", but explicitly contains the word "agent"). Often, even the vendor isn't selling the property/per se/, he's just selling you the right to live there for a limited period of time (which might be 100 years, but it's still leasehold, not f

I guess you've never lived somewhere with an HOA. Exactly those sorts of terms are explicitly spelled out in the deed. There are a surprising number of parallels between HOA deed restrictions and an EULA.

Apple treats you as a criminal...and apparently the users act like them, it is done through breaking the weak security of the iOS operating system, often to return basic features.

Google gives you (the option) of control, and supplies ample warning before the user chooses to this, it is an option on some phones...even a selling point, mainly used to load none play applications (Android is Eden...with gates).

Apple treats you as a criminal? I'm sorry but you are simply trolling. iOS is designed for the masses. They do not want problematic user problems, they do not want many ways to do the same task, they should not have to care about the OS. I'm pretty happy with Apples way that they created their ecosystem, it is fair for both the consumer and the developer.
Android is difficult if not impossible to root on many devices. Some even come with a fuse on the main SOC package that detects if the phone has been rooted.

The line isn't that simple. iOS already knows when it's been jailbroken. There's even an API for that so that programs that deal with security can refuse to operate if they don't trust the environment. Square Payments won't let you read credit cards on a jailbroken device; AirWatch reports jailbreaking back to corporate servers (I keep an un-jailbroken device around just for reading company email); and even Skype pops up a warning dialog that says "this app is unsupported on a jailbroken device."

Since Apple can detect a jailbroken phone, they could obviously take harsher actions themselves. They could shut the phone down, or make it rapidly eat batteries, or delete your accounts, or do any of a hundred different nasty things to the phone. But they don't. They have arrived at a somewhat unstable cease-fire with the jailbreakers. So Apple, in this weird way, actually has OS level "support" for being jailbroken. They don't treat us as criminals.

And they need to. I own many different iDevices, but I wouldn't have even bought the second if I hadn't been able to jailbreak it. I won't upgrade iOS until there's an untethered jailbreak for it. I seriously never consider buying an iDevice unless I have high confidence that I can jailbreak it the day I buy it. It's all a part of making a deal with the devil: if Apple wants my money, they have to tolerate my jailbreaking their device. And I've heard that somewhere around 30% of iPhones are jailbroken -- that's just way too much money for them to walk away from.

They don't treat you as criminals, but they do treat you as pariahs. The fact that having access to all of your phone's features locks you out of certain apps is absolutely ludicrous. I would be up in arms if the same thing happened on my Android phone! How can you even tolerate this sort of thing, let alone actually seem to appreciate them for it? If you've rooted your phone, you've taken up the responsibility of handling its security. The OS and apps on the phone shouldn't detect nor give a shit about it.

I guess you've never tried to 'rent' or 'buy' a movie on Google Play on a rooted device before (even one of the free ones, like Elf that is currently available). If you had, you'd know that Play Videos just pops up a message that says movies are not supported on a rooted device. The message also contains a link to request a refund for your movie, which they processed (the one time I tried it) in about 24 hours.

Android is certainly no better when it comes to having apps 'trust' the DRM stores of the phone.

Don't confuse the issue. The problem is that Apple believes it's illegal to root your own device. The italicized portion is the important part. It is perfectly legal to exploit a root vulnerability on hardware you own. Exploiting software on your own devices is often used in penetration testing, among other things.

Don't confuse the issue. The problem is that Apple believes it's illegal to root your own device. The italicized portion is the important part. It is perfectly legal to exploit a root vulnerability on hardware you own. Exploiting software on your own devices is often used in penetration testing, among other things.

Apple doesn't believe that. Apple definitely doesn't _like_ that you can root your own devices, and possibly believes it _should_ be illegal, but doesn't believe it _is_ illegal. Otherwise a jailbroken iPhone would just stop working.

Two things I don't see mentioned: 1. Nobody except Apple or the legitimate ownere can currently read data on a locked + not jailbroken device (except that you can try ten different passcodes for a one in thousand chance to get in) (and Apple needs the phone and a court order

The whole sentence is almost certainly bullshit. Not least because fuses don't detect anything. However, almost all ARM-based SoC's come with a bank of e-fuses that can contain write-once data, which theoretically could include security tripwires being triggered.However, in my experience working for 2 of the largest mobile phone companies in the world, and one of the largest ARM-based SoC vendors in the world, I've never seen anyone do this. It can makes the phones non-repairable - you never want that, you

The Galaxy SII and SII I know for sure (because I own and have flashed them) have a hardware flash counter. Every time you flash it, it's incremented. Reinstalling the stock ROM doesn't change that, in fact it just increments it again.

Flash counters are not implemented in e-fuses. They would typically be implemented in a calibration area on a flash device which is only writable when the processor is running in secure mode, a mode which is left before the device starts to boot into the main OS. (There can typically be 2-4 levels of bootstrapping loaders before actually booting the OS itself.)I've flashed Galaxies an uncountable number of times (with a wide range of different kernels and operating systems), you've correctly identified one

Android is difficult if not impossible to root on many devices. Some even come with a fuse on the main SOC package that detects if the phone has been rooted.

Garbage. Only two devices have shipped with an e-fuse, the Motorola Droid X and the Galaxy Note 3. The DroidX e-fuse prevents running unauthorised system images, the Note 3 simply blows the e-fuse as a warranty indication to show the device has been flashed with unapproved software. Neither prevents rooting.

NONE OF THIS has anything to do with rooting which is a function of a modification of the running system image itself. Flashing custom firmware (something which is trivial on MOST Android phones) happens

Google gives you (the option) of control, and supplies ample warning before the user chooses to this, it is an option on some phones...even a selling point, mainly used to load none play applications (Android is Eden...with gates).

Sure, you can simply not download an app based on what it says it demands when you try downloading it, but that's beside the point; for all Android's claim to empower the user, why is this of all things not a user option, years after iOS started doing it?

Apple makes nice stuff, but I won't touch any more of it. $650 for an unlocked iPhone 5s and you cannot do what you want with it without a "jailbreak". Contrast with a modern Nexus phone that you can install your own software (e.g. Cyanogenmod) on with a PC and a USB cable.

The same is true for Apple's tablets -- in fact, it is even worse, because "jailbreaking" your iPad is a federal crime under the DMCA.

Apple makes nice stuff, no doubt, but if you cannot change what's inside, you really don't own it.

I understand your decision to buy a Nexus instead of another iPhone. But your logic doesn't make much sense to me?

People spend far more than just $650 all the time on software packages they "don't really own". They don't receive any source code which would allow them to make any changes to what they purchased, nor are they even given more than a limited set of usage rights (can only install on a single PC, etc.).

At the hardware level, you can change whatever you like inside your Apple device, if you're tech

Right. I'm using " a competitor's product with a different set of design parameters" and I am much better off for it. Further, I can get at and read the source for Android, and those with the skills can modify it an make new, and different builds of it -- e.g. Cyanogenmod. That's a whole lot more free than Apple's delightful walled garden.

98%? HTC, Motorola, Sony, Google's own Nexus line and probably more I've forgotten all have official bootloader unlocking toolkits which can be used on their current phones, even the flagships. The Google Play edition phones are also all unlockable. The elephant in the room is Samsung, but one would hope that pressure from the other OEMs might get them to do it too.

Actually, I do refer to this as root exploiting, but if I point that out (as I have in the past) and praised Apple for closing the security hole I get jumped on by Android fanboys calling me an enemy of freedom.

In other words, they care about exploits and security when it's convenient, but not when it's in any way in conflict with bashing Apple.

With many months of work with physical access to the device and then intentionally loading apps which allow you to load other apps while TETHERED via USB to a computer. And this makes the iPhone "insecure"?

Well for one, being that it took months for people to get it rooted, means it probably isn't that insecure. Second the level of effort making it a Local break in vs. a Remote break in, is a big deal too.

I think one reason is that a proper jailbreak isn't just clicking on something and up pops a pound sign, or something happens allowing a chrooted su executable to be slid into/system/xbin.

A jailbreak on the iPhone is a bigger PITA, in general, than root in Android that for the simple reason that iOS has almost no userland as we know it. Plus, unlike Android where the security model is unaffected by rooting, other than a Trojan asking for root with a su prompt [1], iOS jailbreaks might affect the entire se

Despite the name, a rootkit does not generally refer to a generic "tool for getting root" on an unmodified device.

A rootkit is a certain type of malware that hides itself inside the OS by modifying the OS, preventing userland views of its presence. For example, if you ask the OS for a list of files in a folder because you want to see if you have malware on it, the modified file system will conveniently skip listing the files containing the filesystem modifications. How is an anti-virus program supposed to

Evasi0n7 is the name of the method used to apply a tethered jailbreak to the phone. The 7 is for iOS 7. The jailbreak is what disables the security features that lock people out of their own device.

TaiG is the name of a "store" the distributes Chinese applications, similar to Cydia, the store that is currently considered to be the "default" for distributing applications on jailbroken devices. Aside from using Cydia or TaiG, you can also put apps on the device manually or use other stores / distributions.

The deal with TaiG was not a result of any stealing. Evasi0n (the team that made the Evasi0n7 method) had been approached by TaiG with an offer of bundling their store instead of Cydia (which doesn't have a lot of Chinese content) for Chinese users only. Terms of the deal included that TaiG would not be allowed to distribute any "pirated" applications. Evasi0n's rational was that without TaiG on the device, most Chinese users would proceed to install an app store that did provide "pirated" apps and this way they would be condoning a "non-pirating" app store to the huge Chinese jailbreak audience. In exchange for bundling TaiG and therefore giving TaiG a huge userbase in China, Evasi0n was offered a lump of money.

Unfortunately, it turns out after the fact that some pirated apps were spotted on TaiG. Evasi0n reported these to TaiG ASAP and they were removed. You can imagine the trolling that ensued especially from competing jailbreak teams.

Other teams working on a jailbreak method in parallel to Evasi0n were also given this offer from TaiG. In fact, another team was getting a jailbreak release ready with a similar, stolen or different method, I don't know, but since they were getting close to a release, Evasi0n decided to fast-track their working method and release a jailbreak early. The up-side of an early release was that they'd get TaiG's money and they'd get the credit for the jailbreak. The down-side is that the huge volume of apps written for jailbroken devices hadn't been tested and fixed to work on iOS 7 yet, including "Cydia". iOS compatibility is even more crucial for jailbroken apps than for standard iOS apps since they often use undocumented API which is obviously very volatile across iOS versions.

As a result of Evasi0n's early release, a bunch of people jailbroke their device only to find that almost all of the apps written for jailbroken devices that they were installing crashed or cashed their phones to break - since, as I said, they weren't updated for iOS 7.

TL;DR - Evasi0n worked really hard to find a method for jailbreaking, figured they deserved some money for their effort, figured in the mean time they'd condone a safe store to the Chinese, saw their chance at success slip away as other teams were gearing up to steal the glory and released before the developer community was ready, causing breakage and mayhem, never mind the trolling about the sudden appearance of a Chinese app store instead of Cydia.

As if reporting about US politics isn't enough, Slashdot is now apparently even reporting political games played within the blackhat/exploit scene. Honestly I have no idea what they're talking about in that summary.

Oh well, at least there is some kind of a link to something technical. And Apple, of course.

And I'll just go back to trying to unlock that uncooperative HTC Evo 3D...

If I follow: the jail-breakers, who want to get out of Apple's walled garden, are complaining that someone is operating outside their own walled garden and allowing software and services the jail-breakers don't approve of to be run on hardware they don't make?